Fable - the game that is 17 years old yet loses none of its charm. It is simply put magical and beautiful.

Compared to the Anniversary though, the game in my book is equal in rating and almost equally rated for the visual style.

Fable: The Lost Chapters is more simplistic and maybe some prefer it as the simplistic nature of it might be more visually pleasing than the remaster.

Nonetheless, Anniversary or The Lost Chapters I love this game.

As a young'un I was so obsessed with this game for a period, sadly my middle school friends judged it harshly for its juvenile artstyle. In the age of God of War/RE4/DMC3 edge Molyneux's childish adventure stood no chance, so I went with the only reasonable tactic for making them play it - lying. You'd marry your wife then have to keep her happy else she'd cheat on you, I said. You could catch her in the act and have a choice of either correcting with your fists or taking it to court. If kept happy though she would give you a child. The child would grow on the course of your journey and even come adventuring with you. You could be a kind town mayor amassing wealth beyond measure or a cultist leader that sacrifices populations to sheitan for demon wings that of course enabled flight. The people you beat up as a kid would come for you later in the game Mordor's nemesis style, but assist you in boss fights if you helped them Dark Souls style.

Naturally, I wasn't aware of the controversies surrounding Fable as I invoked the king of lies. God bless you anglo bastard, may your dental surgeries go well.

Was surprised with how much time and money was put into this, especially when the credits began rolling for two main studios with at least a hundred employees each. Granted, Lionhead and Microsoft likely weren't doing this stuff with RenderWare or Unity, beyond QA and sound management.
Competent combat that has a good amount of variety, which I mostly bruteforced with fantasy bullettime. Very visible technical/creative limitations that remains from every LOD level pop and cut content that even The Lost Chapters couldn't bring back. While not the easiest for the industry to see at the time, even in 2005 one can feel the friction of increasing demand of 'Triple-A' scale not being able to be matched. The game tries its best to depict an epic struggle with what its world of janky hallways and omnipresent guards(?) announcing day-night times more frequently than the main quest giver. And it's an effort that sucessfully hit with enough people to create multiple sequels including one in development right now.
Can't knock on this game too hard for succeeding in that regard. In retrospect however, Fable 1 really feels like a bellweather for how big budget games would start trending towards.

Rose-colored glasses (nostalgia bias warning)

This was my first PC game ever, and I LOVED it.
I know I put the nostalgia warning, but honestly I've replayed this game a ton and I still love it to this day.
This is another game I have to stop myself from replaying so that I can actually work through my backlog.

It's got an alignment system that's pretty easy to manipulate once you understand it, but as a kid it was so awesome seeing myself appear lighter and brighter as I did my good deeds. (Spoiler: if you get so benevolent, you even get a beam of light that shines down on you, which I adored).

I've still never done an evil playthrough because being mean to fictional characters makes me sad, but I hear the evil side of things is just as cool and fun.

If you're looking for a classic, tropey RPG experience, this is where you can find it.
And just a reminder that following tropes isn't a bad thing; instead, this game takes inspiration from RPG tropes and perfects them.
The plot is straight forward and easy to follow without being boring, the twists make sense but can be hard to guess without actively trying to, the abilities give you such a broad range of choices that you can do combat nearly however you want, AND you can kick chickens!
You can get married, buy houses, trade goods with wandering traders, act like a bandit, be a feared source of benevolence.
I know there's quite a few options that provide this kind of gameplay that may seem a bit cleaner than this game, but this was one of the originals and the love from the developers truly shows and shines.

My biggest complaint with the game is that as you level up abilities, you get older which, while an interesting and cool detail, means you can never be a mid-20s badass; you'll always get old before you get awesome.

Kinda feel bad for giving it such a low score, it was pretty good when it came out, but also the morality system is so black and white it makes my brain hurt, that’s not really a BAD thing per say but when games that came out before it like fallout and shin megami tensei on older generations it really makes the any depth this game may have look like a puddle

I’m not huge on the aesthetic either it feels kinda ugly almost in a charming way but also not

Gameplay is pretty fun how you can build your character though


The pee pee poo poo humor kinda also isn’t my jam